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Facebook Accused of Watching Instagram Users Through Cameras (bloomberg.com) 58

Posted by BeauHD from the always-watching dept.
Facebook is again being sued for allegedly spying on Instagram users, this time through the unauthorized use of their mobile phone cameras. Bloomberg reports: The lawsuit springs from media reports in July that the photo-sharing app appeared to be accessing iPhone cameras even when they weren't actively being used. Facebook denied the reports and blamed a bug, which it said it was correcting, for triggering what it described as false notifications that Instagram was accessing iPhone cameras.

In the complaint filed Thursday in federal court in San Francisco, New Jersey Instagram user Brittany Conditi contends the app's use of the camera is intentional and done for the purpose of collecting "lucrative and valuable data on its users that it would not otherwise have access to." By "obtaining extremely private and intimate personal data on their users, including in the privacy of their own homes," Instagram and Facebook are able to collect "valuable insights and market research," according to the complaint.
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Facebook Accused of Watching Instagram Users Through Cameras More

Facebook Accused of Watching Instagram Users Through Cameras

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  • Lucrative and Valuable? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by cusco ( 717999 )

    Lucrative and valuable? Is she the CEO of an investment bank or a Mafia don? Maybe a movie star or super model? No? Then it's hard to figure out what lucrative and valuable data about her might be available, user data generally sells for a fraction of a penny.

    Besides, who wants pictures of the inside of her purse?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      One could make that argument about all the data big tech harvests and uses, but aggregate all of it from millions or billions of users and suddenly its quite valuable.

    • read about cambridge analytica (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Don Bright ( 6770394 ) on Saturday September 19, 2020 @08:12AM (#60521440)

      by gathering thousands of points of data on every user, facebook is able to allow advertisers (which is what political campaigns are) to microtarget people with an unimaginable precision and likelihood of altering behavior.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cusco ( 717999 )

        Those are the marketing department's claims, but I don't see it. Maybe I'm atypical but the advertising that I get is generally tangential to my interests at best and frequently diametrically opposed. I don't have a Farcebook account, but my wife's experience is not that different from mine with YouTube. In another recent thread about YouTube recommendations I wrote:

        Nope, that's not the way it works for me at all. I'm interested in history, space, engineering, and science and tend to watch those sort of videos, interspersed with EDM concerts and Andean folk music. What are their recommendations? Ancient aliens, phantasmagorical Atlanteans building Inca and Egyptian megaliths, Christian and Muslim apologetics, and most bizarrely of all Trump videos. I've tried clicking through to down vote them hoping to clean up the feed, but to no avail.

        In any case, an individual's data is barely less than worthless, so the only people who are going to get more than a fraction of a penny out

        • vention io. design with the easiest online cad. order. assemble your machine with one tool. Vention.

          dang i almost have it memorized. i guess that might be related to looking up 3d printer stuff on youtube. but they nail me pretty good sometimes.

  • Have you ever noticed . . . (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nehumanuscrede ( 624750 ) on Friday September 18, 2020 @09:55PM (#60520754)

    Have you ever noticed that anytime a company gets caught doing something they probably shouldn't be doing via software that's it's always a " bug " or " glitch " ?

    Either that or they find some Jr. Programmer to use as a scapegoat, pin a " Disgruntled Employee " tag on em and show them the door.

    The amount of bullshit they come up with to dodge responsibility is amazing.

    • It's not a bug, it's a feature.

    • Have you ever noticed that anytime a company gets caught doing something they probably shouldn't be doing via software that's it's always a " bug " or " glitch " ?

      That could be highly related to the fact that bugs and glitches are unintentional errors in software. And when something unintentional happens it's usually something users don't expect, and then they "catch" the company and declare victory while firing off conspiracies in every direction.

      Here's an Occam's Razor for you: If you wanted to purposefully spy on users do you engage in secret underhanded tactics, or do you use a function where the OS tells the user what you're doing?

      Also who is being scapegoated h

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      To be fair it's hard to see how Facebook could have hoped to monetize random photos taken with people's phones. What were they planning to go, grab your band details and raid your account? Send you an email threatening to release nudes if you don't pay up?

      They already have access to all the private photos on Facebook, plenty of stuff on there to get off to.

      I'm open to suggestions but it does sound like a bug.

    • Have you ever noticed that anytime a company gets caught doing something they probably shouldn't be doing via software that's it's always a " bug " or " glitch " ?

      Either that or they find some Jr. Programmer to use as a scapegoat, pin a " Disgruntled Employee " tag on em and show them the door.

      The amount of bullshit they come up with to dodge responsibility is amazing.

      Realistically the only thing you've defined here is the tiny amount of bullshit it takes to convince stupid people to accept lies as fact. It's not like they need to come up with a lot.

      And they're not merely dodging responsibility. They're making billions off it, and avoiding fucking prison, which is where the rest of us mere mortals would be if we pulled half the shit they pull on a daily basis.

  • Obvious statement is obvious.

    Trump, do something!!

  • Whew! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Glad I don't masturbate to Instagram photos and videos.

  • Use a rubber-band (Score:4, Informative)

    by cachorro ( 576097 ) on Saturday September 19, 2020 @01:58AM (#60521060)

    I take one of those fat rubber-bands they use to hold bunches of asparagus together, and stretch it over the camera lenses on my phone. It keeps dirt off the lens and prevents any unintended video capture.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • One basic law is needed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tiqui ( 1024021 ) on Saturday September 19, 2020 @03:30AM (#60521126)

    I'm normally against nearly all government regulation of tech, for several reasons I'll get to, but with that said I have long believed that one particular tech law is absolutely required, and it needs to be federal so it covers all 50 states and the territories: Any electronic device which includes a camera or a microphone must have a physical switch that cuts-off the camera, and a physical switch that cuts off the microphone, or a single one that cuts both, and it must be obvious the the user if either of these switches is in the "on" position. Such a law needs slightly better wording, and a massive penalty for violating it, but should not be made any more complicated - lawmakers love huge omnibus "crap-sandwich" bills as a way to bury all sorts of dastardly evil corruption. I personally think we'd all be far better off if no law could address more than one topic and none could take up more than 4 pages of single-space typed 9pt text on a size A sheet.

    This is required for two reasons: First, because big tech has repeatedly demonstrated that its word is meaningless, and second because even if the consumer could trust big tech when it says it's not looking or listening, that's no guarantee that some 3rd party malware is not.

    The reasons I generally oppose govt intervention of big tech include, but are not limited to:

    1. Politicians are generally not from the smart end of the gene pool - people who are generally (though admittedly not always) choose other more productive careers. The simple fact is that even with a few smart lawmakers, the dumb ones will always outnumber them, Same goes for all the unelected bureaucrats.

    2. Politicians are often corrupt. Sure, there are some with fairly pure motives on at least some issues, but there are just too many whose opinions can be shaped by bribes ... errr.... "campaign contributions" (yeah... that's the ticket!...). This means that bigger less creative and less nimble early market entrants can encourage regulations that create regulatory capture.

    3. Politics is just too slow - by design. Politics is about compromise, and getting people to "split the difference" is great for lots of policy matters, but it stinks as a way to advance technology. The first robotic race horse ends up as half robotic hippo and half robotic frog. By the time politicians finish regulating a bit of tech it's likely to be 3 generations obsolete, and if you could change that formula, it'd be by slowing down the advance of tech, not by making politics more efficient (unless your politics is centered on the iron fist and the gulag of course)

    4. Politics tends to be one-size-fits-all. When government creates a new rule or regulation, we do not each get one custom-tailored to our needs. In an ideal marketplace, many competitors are always innovating and we can each choose products and services we prefer, including often hanging onto semi-obsolete stuff when that's what we prefer. The marketplace can provide that to a reasonable degree, but government abhors even the concept, but also lacks the competency.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by noodler ( 724788 )

      This is required for two reasons: First, because big tech has repeatedly demonstrated that its word is meaningless,

      Yet you don't want to regulate them.

      What value does your principles of no regulation have if it leads to unethical behavior by entities with much more money and power than a typical person? I, for one, wipe my ass with these 'principles'. You've turned it into an ideology of sorts. And just like all other ideologies they invariably lead to abuse because they abstract away the consequences of having such an idealized prediction of reality. The market will fix itself. Except that it never does. It leads to m

  • I've said this before, and I'll say it again... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Nabeel_co ( 1045054 ) on Saturday September 19, 2020 @03:31AM (#60521128) Homepage
    Where I work, we had a Facebook dev come in, circa 2015, to give a talk on UX/UI and user testing, and he told us that they use the front facing camera to do eye tracking to know where you're looking on the screen. During the QA period, he clarified that this was happening in their public release version, not just internally.

    He also let us know that the Facebook app uploads your WHOLE camera roll to their servers in the background, to make "uploads" seem faster.

    • He also let us know that the Facebook app uploads your WHOLE camera roll to their servers in the background, to make "uploads" seem faster.

      Sorry but that is easily disproven bullshit. If this actually happened users would be shouting from the rooftops about the data usage on their phones.

      • Sorry but that is easily disproven bullshit. If this actually happened users would be shouting from the rooftops about the data usage on their phones.

        Ok, so disprove it. I'm just telling you what he told me and my company when he gave his UX/UI optimization talk.

        He also said they A/B tested things like loading dummy content with a mask, while real content loaded and how it made people think things were loading faster, and how they found out that if they use the iOS spinner, people would blame slowness on their phone, instead of on Facebook.

        • You know, now that I think about it... I don't think it was your whole camera roll... It may have just been the last few days or weeks of photos...

          It was over 5 years ago, so I can't remember the details, but one thing was clear, they were definitely uploading photos without explicitly mentioning it to make the upload process seem faster, and they were definitely doing eye tracking to measure engagement.

        • Ok, so disprove it. I'm just telling you what he told me and my company when he gave his UX/UI optimization talk.

          Okay: You have some random claim. Facebook is one of the most looked at companies in the world in terms of privacy even before the Cambridge scandal. The news reports are entirely criticked on the claim. You can't prove a negative, but you can get there beyond reasonable doubt. Don't believe everyone some dude tells you, even if that dude works for a company you do business with ... err especially in this case.

          Oh that and Facebook uploads are firstly still slow and easily shown to upload the whole file when

          • No way! I'm shocked that Facebook would use a concept that internet facing applications such as browsers have used for 20 years to speed up the experience! SHOCKED!.

            This wasn't meant to be a shocking point. I was simply just telling you more of the kind of things he talked about during his session.

            You can reply with as much snide sarcasm as you want, I'm just telling you what a Facebook developer told me and the room with about 20 other people back in 2015.

            I honestly don't understand why you're getting so butt hurt over this.

            If you have an issue, take it up with the Facebook dev that came by my place of business five years ago.

          • Also, not that I need to point out that you're being a little crazy but, if they were uploading your camera roll in the background, they wouldn't do it on data, and would instead wait for Wi-Fi.

            Chillax.

      • Nobody would notice an extra 10 MB on top of 500 MB.

        I recall the app, which was preloaded onto a phone I used briefly last year, showing that it had used data when I never launched it. I recall trying to delete it and it re-appearing. I recall disabling background data on it, and then it re-enabling itself. Not that most users know to check these things.

        When you've got total control over the OS, the software, plus deals in the place with the hardware manufacturer and network operator... it's not hard to sli

    • If this was really true, preferably you need to contact the lawyer fighting this case. You might have been under an NDA or similar and Facebook always requires their partner companies to sign an NDA so be a bit careful - you want them to force you to answer the questions so that you are legally protected from that, however as a witness you have more or less absolute protection from any testimony you give in a correct legal setting. You definitely want their lawyers to understand what you know from early o

      • Honestly, it's easy enough to test, and it was so long ago it's possible they don't do this stuff anymore or he misrepresented what they were doing, but honestly, he was so cavalier about it, when the news broken I was surprised it wasn't common knowledge, and then when they denied it, I was even more surprised.
        • People are so dumb in comprehension these days, while lawyers and PR know how to tell half-truths by omission. What if they were not accessing the camera, but accessing or downloading recently taken images. Then both are telling the truth - sortof. What if they wanted to know how many pictures you took - so identify real social junkies. Those might trigger the camera.

        • Honestly, it's easy enough to test, and it was so long ago it's possible they don't do this stuff anymore or he misrepresented what they were doing, but honestly, he was so cavalier about it, when the news broken I was surprised it wasn't common knowledge, and then when they denied it, I was even more surprised.

          I bet it's actually almost impossible to test because, I bet they make sure that a) they don't do it if you might be testing b) they don't do it in most areas most of the time, just when they think it'll be safe c) they will have, by accident, protected themselves by all sorts of technical means. You will test it and mostly, unless you know what you should be looking for, you will see nothing. What that means is that, with untargeted discovery, you will find nothing. If, on the other hand, you have a spe

          • I mean, this sort of thing could be something that they were doing at one point, but someone made the decision to stop, and the fact that it was happening at one point never reached the higher ups in a large organization like Facebook.

            later on, when the execs asked, the Dems could honestly say "no, that's not something we're doing." never having known that it was actually a thing for a little while. It doesn't need to be as maniacal as that, it could legitimately be somewhat innocent.

            • I mean, this sort of thing could be something that they were doing at one point, but someone made the decision to stop, and the fact that it was happening at one point never reached the higher ups in a large organization like Facebook.

              later on, when the execs asked, the Dems could honestly say "no, that's not something we're doing." never having known that it was actually a thing for a little while. It doesn't need to be as maniacal as that, it could legitimately be somewhat innocent.

              Absolutely, you are right. But that situation shows that Facebook allowed it to be possible and that it's quite likely that it happened in multiple different cases in multiple different ways. Normally, Facebook comes into court and simply says "never happened, nothing to talk about". The Judge assumes they are telling the truth (this is the default unless there's contradicting evidence) and the people acting against Facebook lose their case. If, at that point, the lawyer accusing facebook is able to say

              • Yeah, we'll see.

                I mean, for me this kind of thing is obvious, and something I assume is always happening. I tell the story not to get involved, but rather just as a cautionary tale, because I think people should know where things stand.

                I have no desire to testify to anything or get involved in any sort of legal battle. Not to mention, my story is from a 5 year old memory, and we know how bad peoples memories and recollection of events are. I could have easily misheard or misunderstood, and not realized it a

  • Phone makers will never install a manual 'kill' switch on the outside of the phone which disconnects the audio and camera as it makes it difficult for you to be monitored (without your knowledge) through a domestic surveillance program. To help avoid getting hacked/info-siphoned: 1. Tend to keep your phone physically turned off when its not in use. (this takes care of the accidental audio-leak) 2. Avoid downloading anything that is in any way connected to facebook or instagram. 3. Don't use any video
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  • Undeniable truth of life: If a product or servcie is free, you are not the customer, you are the product. Example: AM radio, Broadcast TV, YouTube, any website with ads, free IOS apps.

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